Do Not Stand At My Grave And Weep
by ArgentNoelle
Summary: post-s2, (very slight AU). Ciel Phantomhive is a demon, something he never chose to become. Sebastian is his butler forever, and although he has to serve, he does not have to do so happily. And Lizzie grieves, and grows up. ["How Not to Spend Eternity" - parts 1 & 2]
1. Do not stand at my grave and weep

_Do not stand at my grave and weep  
_ _I am not there; I do not sleep.  
_ _I am a thousand winds that blow,  
_ _I am the diamond glints on snow,  
_ _I am the sun on ripened grain,  
_ _I am the gentle autumn rain.  
_ _When you awaken in the morning's hush,  
_ _I am the swift uplifting rush  
_ _Of quiet birds in circled flight.  
_ _I am the soft stars that shine at night.  
_ _Do not stand at my grave and cry,  
_ _I am not there; I did not die._

— Mary Elizabeth Frye - 1932

* * *

 _ **1\. Do not stand at my grave and weep**_

Ciel Phantomhive's second funeral was on a clear, cloudless day, and all during the service Lizzie remembered the first one—the violent winds, the overcast sky, the empty coffin lowered into the earth with those of his family's, in absence of any body. But this time, the body was there, and he was never going to show up again, like a miracle. It was a long walk to the front of the church aisle, where she stared down at his calm, restful face, the unfitting innocence of white in every stitch of his clothes, the colors for a child's funeral. It seemed hideously unfitting, one more horrible thing in this whole horrible affair. Ciel had left his manor all in black. It had unnerved her then, in a way she could only describe as "uncute" —but it was more than a lack of style. It was a darkness, a sucking void; it was the uncomfortable feeling that he _did_ look well in it, that it looked like funeral clothes, that it looked like his butler.

They had gone, and neither of them had come back. There was Ciel with the blood and bullet wound hidden under white cloth, and there was Sebastian, gone, and there was Lizzie, standing in front of the coffin, touching the cold, pale skin of her late fiancée with trembling hands. She was terrified. All she could think of was that glimpse in his eyes—had she imagined it? That cold, burning red… it made her wonder, and shudder, afraid that he would _open his eyes_ again here and now, and look at her, and be _wrong_ , but she could not tell anyone that. Her mother and father and brother all about her, and everyone else who had been at Ciel's first funeral, except for his aunt Angelina, whom he had been so fond of, and who had died.

It was so dreadfully unfair, such a mocking cruelty, to have gotten him back only to lose him three mere years later—and lose part of him even before that—his last year was memoryless, stuck in the sadness of another person's story… it didn't suit Ciel at all to be so oblivious, so young. It didn't suit him at all to be dead, and she almost wished he would wake and look at her, even in anger, just so she could be sure, just so she could know…

Oh, but something terrible had happened to him!

Sebastian had arranged the funeral, it seemed, and sent out all the cards—at least, he must have, because his servants had not, and they did not know who had. But Sebastian was not here. That didn't even make it into the murmurs all throughout the church—whispers of pity mixed with disdain, sorrow with ambivalence, rumors about the child-Earl, his flourishing company, his excess of money, his dark secrets. But Bard, Mei-Rin, Finny, and Tanaka stood by her and when she wept she knew they understood, if anyone did, at least a fraction of her grief. She felt strange, out of place, more connected to _his_ family and estate than her own in this time, a belated sense of marriage that would never be. She'd told him that they would be happy. She'd promised him. She'd… wanted him to promise her. Didn't he want to be with her? Didn't he understand that she loved him? How could he leave her again? Wasn't that crueller than never coming back at all?

What a terrible thing to think.

The fading summer grasses whispered under her feet as she stood above the new earth of his grave, stepping into those dry, crumbling clods. "How could you do this to me?" Lizzie demanded, crying, waiting for an answer from the cold grey stone. "How did you know… who was it that killed you… why didn't you stop it from happening? I _know_ you could have. You always did."

The Queen's Watchdog was invincible. He came back, ten years old, malnourished and bruised with a cold steel in his remaining eye that brooked no argument, and in the years that followed he cut a firey path through the underworld, spawning fear and superstition, while he rose to dizzying heights in the light of day. That kind of charm, that uncanny luck couldn't have run out, could it?

Wasn't it his due, for all that he had suffered; wasn't it their happy ending, after all?

.

.

.


	2. I am not there, I do not sleep

_**2\. I am not there; I do not sleep.**_

* * *

In the dark of the night Sebastian freed him from the bounds of the coffin, and made up the grave again so that you could never tell that there had been a speck of dirt moved. The gunshot wound was hardly more than a fading twinge by now, a memory without even a bloodstained shirt to tell of its truth anymore. All the mourners had left, Lizzie had gone, though she had blamed him with reason for abandoning her cruelly. It stung Ciel in that place he no longer had a heart to beat, a memory of all the caring people he had pushed away.

It was all for the best, really. He could not continue to live among them, after all—not as this. And why should he wish to?

The small apartment Sebastian had bought under another name was in the heart of the city, a perfect place to disappear into the shadows of London's filth. Ciel had had some idea—he'd thought—some plan of continuing to police the streets, this time as a superstition in truth, to go after the criminal, to snare the souls of the hopeless, but all that they had done since the funeral's end was sit within the pressed walls like another larger coffin. Ciel could order Sebastian to do anything, but what was there to do? Sebastian made him imaginary tea, and waited on him in the morning, and then drifted off into the rest of the house, if Ciel made no move to stay him, and he said nothing, nothing at all, that was not prompted. And the look behind his eyes was no longer vast and full of mirth but a barren void, and if Ciel looked too long, he became so afraid that there was nothing looking back—nothing at all.

Even the oblivion of dreams was lost to him, false-death along with true. He could lay unmoving in his bed all night, conscious of every noise and whisper, conscious of Sebastian's presence, like a hungered, darkened, tendrilled creature, in the next room, a creature that reached its edges along the walls of the house and made them sing with dull groans and horrid creaks, _nothing, we have nothing, we are lost_. They never came into his room, these senses of Sebastian, and he wished sickly to order him to, though that would unravel any meaning in the act.

He did it anyway, and watched the pools of darkness on the ceiling as Sebastian pretended to watch over him—though the shadows pointed inwards, like vortexes—as Ciel pretended to sleep.

In the words that had bound Sebastian to him ever more, he had made a gamble, but he had thought he knew all the possible alternatives. Either Sebastian would succeed, before Hannah's plan went through, or he would fail, and then Ciel would never be alone through the ages of a damned eternity. What he hadn't accounted for was this… although he could not leave, Sebastian was no longer really there as he once was, as the familiar presence he had known. And Sebastian, of everyone, had always seen him—he had never realized how much weight he put on that regard, to be known, to be prized above all others by the one creature for whom all his secrets and all his power were only children's toys.

Now, with that regard taken away, Ciel felt invisible, insubstantial…

But he would not break the contract, out of fear and pride. He knew Sebastian. He would not be able to continue this sulking forever.

But the more time that passed and Sebastian was still gone, the more Ciel began to wonder if he had ever really known Sebastian at all—or, alternatively, if the mask he had known, being a lie, had still slipped away despite the chain that should have anchored it to reality.

And so he could not break the contract, even to end this, because to do so he would admit that he had been wrong about Sebastian… and because to do so would admit that the reason he had tied Sebastian to him was because he had been weak, and wanted to never be alone, and that he had come to depend on the lie, as he swore to himself he never would.

So a slave he would have, and so they would remain.

And Sebastian, in the morning, served him empty cups, and Ciel drank.

.

.

.


	3. I am a thousand winds that blow

_**3\. I am a thousand winds that blow,**_

* * *

From the open window of this house Ciel could see over the drowned street. The gaslamps, still non-extinguished in the early morning, the quiet hour when the denizens of the day had not woken and the night-creatures had already retired. He was sitting on the edge of the windowsill, barefoot and in his white nightgown. One storey down to the second floor, one storey down to the first, one storey down to the ground floor and the cobbled street, all in fine, unnatural clarity that the dark had not opposed.

He could feel that his eyes, straining to pick up more, had shifted; he could feel the agitation behind him, too thin, too encompassing, for the pale skin over his bones, the knuckles of his hands white where he grabbed the edge, digging deep gouges into the wood. I just want to be out there, and not in here, Ciel thought, and then somehow he was, pulled out of his semblance of self with an odd twist like falling, a rushing in his ears. He tipped himself down, watching the way his fingers unravelled at the tips, wisping off their color into the bleached grey of not-yet-dawn. And there was no more boy and no more thought in the windowsill, but it that went skimming across the sullen clouds. It passed the shops putting up their wares, and wound itself around the top-hats of men and the feathered hats of women, with dead-blackbird eyes. It tripped itself behind the paperboys and sent the pages to fly, it wound itself past foot and hoof and into the green fields. There it rested, under a tree, and saw a girl with emerald eyes, dressed all in grey.

Why are you mourning? It asked, in the rustle of leaves, twirling to the ground, brushing past her face with a playful twirl. Surely you are not too old for whimsy yet. And she wiped her red eyes, looking up at the dancing.

Come and play, it said. I never did, with you, enough before.

And she listened—standing up in her soft half-mourning, reaching and leaping to catch the darting leaves before they hit the earth. Even in the dreary day, the almost-noon light shifting down past endless empty sky, the color of her hair shone gold, and her cheeks flushed with pink; a laugh lifted from her and flew into the air like wings, a careless gift to the world. If only I could stay here forever, it thought, with a sudden aching foreign to itself; if only I could hold her close with every strand and keep her near.

But it was in the nature of the wind to move on, and so it did, and left the still and quiet behind it, and went on to farther planes, to the fretful, choppy waves and other shores.

.

.

.


	4. I am the diamond glints on snow,

_**4\. I am the diamond glints on snow,**_

* * *

One night, long ago, Ciel had dreamed. He had dreamed that Sebastian was clad all in white, cold and clear and perfect, and he had been taken away from the world and everyone that meant to keep him there. Lizzie had been in the dream, a bright hint of summer, a knight with a shining sword. But she had failed, because Ciel had made a promise, and he could never more visit those places where she breathed; the roses and the gardens and the soft brown earth.

Ciel remembered that dream, that dream that had been, perhaps, his own, but had certainly had some other's thought in it. And he remembered the way Sebastian had taken them up into the sky, in a carriage light enough for the wind, that left the glint of a million tiny starlights behind it, falling softly to the slumbering ground below. I am there now, forever, he thought. But where have you gone? The other end of that promise was slack, and he seemed to stumble through an existence never meant to be.

He had never wanted this, Ciel thought. He had never asked for anything more than death. He had never wanted anything more than to take his revenge and then to cease existing, to no more have to feel. So why had even that been taken from him?

He brushed the edge of his black sleeve over the tarnished edge of the hand-mirror again, trying to rid it of that unsightly smudge; but it didn't seem to work. And he could feel as Sebastian entered the room behind him, the always-butler in black as was his wont.

Wiping the mirror will not change your reflection, Sebastian might have said, with a mocking lilt to his voice, and Ciel might have replied that he wasn't looking at that; it was the mirror's fault anyway—

(and it wasn't at all the slit-pupilled red of his eyes, or the hovering grotesques he saw behind them, if he looked too long)

And then Sebastian might take the mirror from him, and polish it easily, handing it back with a smirk before he brought up more pressing business.

But they had no more pressing business, and Sebastian did not.

How do you deal with eternity? Ciel thought. I cannot bear it, it is like the weight of life without an end, without even everything that made it bearable in-between.

He put down the mirror, and looked at his butler. For this was his butler, there could be no doubt—the same black tailcoat, the same watch-chain, flaunting all propriety, the same crow-flecked hair and flawless, porcelain skin. Still, there was something different about this mirage, and it was not only in his dull and lustreless eyes—it was in the careful stiffness in his four-limbed posture, and the thin press of his mouth, and the way he hadn't said anything at all.

"Tell me, Sebastian," Ciel said, "what is it like, being a butler?"

Perhaps, deep in the very blackness beyond that mask, there was a flicker, but if it was it died before he could even find a thread to catch on to.

"What would my lord wish to know?" Sebastian asked, tonelessly.

"Anything. Give me a general picture, some detail, I don't know."

Sebastian sighed. "In the morning," he started, "I bring in the paper, start my master's tea and fetch his clothes, making sure everything is neatly pressed. I take care that breakfast is started and that the schedule of the house is running smoothly."

"What schedule?"

The uncomfortable monologue paused; Sebastian stopped, almost thrown, and Ciel felt a surge of cruel glee at the reaction. "I'm sorry?" he asked at last.

"I said, what schedule. As far as I know, we don't have a schedule, Sebastian, or am I mistaken. We haven't seen any callers, we haven't gone shopping, we haven't announced our presence, and you have no servants to supervise."

"If my master has an issue, I shall rectify it immediately," Sebastian said, in a voice so dull it almost hurt.

"I don't have an issue!" Ciel shouted, and took several breaths, trying to calm his sudden ire. Sebastian still did not react, not to taunt, not to gloat, not even to offer a word of advice. He felt strangely as if he were talking to himself, as though, perhaps, if he did leave the house by the front door, he would find that he had disappeared entirely without having known it. It made his palms sweat, it made his stomach turn, and the things beyond-between all of those material existences shook themselves and quaked.

But no—Sebastian was there, for Ciel could see his essence under that butler façade. Not a façade, though, was it? What did it feel like, to be a butler, for eternity? Could it be as terrible as being a not-boy, no-longer-Earl? What name did it think of in the night, when it filled the house with its inconceivable sadness, or had it even had one?

Sebastian. Yes. Forever.

/

He stepped outside the house, his boots hesitating upon the front step, with Sebastian trailing silently behind him. They went to the shopping district, and bought whatever trinkets could be bought. His cane made pockmarked holes in the new snow, already turning to a grey and lump-ridden slush, and he remembered why he had always found London intolerable.

Then they went back inside, and Sebastian slipped away to put all these boxes in their place.

If I go outside, alone, Ciel thought, will I have disappeared?

He turned back to the door. His hand fell easily enough on the cold brass knob, and it swung open at his hesitant push. He stepped out.

He did not feel at all like a human-shaped being, and perhaps that was the problem. He had gotten lost, somehow, in those new snow-drifts, all he could do was cast back dazzling reflections. And the snow covered such a long space, it covered the untrodden roads and the gardens around the Midford house.

"One moment, Paula," Elizabeth said, hovering by the carriage door, watching as her mother walked straight-backed toward the house again, her father, her brother. "I'd just like to get a bit of fresh air, before I follow you in."

"Fresh air?" Paula asked. "But, my lady, it's near freezing."

"I know."

"It was frightfully drafty in church, you don't want to catch a chill."

"I know, Paula!" Lizzie snapped. Then she sighed, at Paula's hurt look. "I'm sorry," she said. "It's just a moment, really. Five minutes or less, please cover for me?"

At last, her maid sighed. "All right, my lady, if you insist," she said dubiously.

"Thank you," Lizzie breathed.

As the line of figures trooped away, her hands trembled, and she pulled her cloak tighter around her.

"Oh Ciel," she said, sickly, "I wish you were here. Sometimes I feel like you are, and it makes me think if I just knew the right words to say, you would turn back to me and take me in your arms. Am I a fool to feel this way? To think that death could be such a frivolous thing?"

And the clear sun on the clean, pure snow lit the ground beneath her feet with shimmering rainbows and shadows of blue.

She shook, and screwing her eyes up, the tears upon her lashes glimmered. "It's already been so long; I feel like you're slipping away. What if I stop remembering you? What will be left?" Her fingers, red in the frost, hovered at her throat.

.

.

.


	5. I am the sun on ripened grain,

_**5\. I am the sun on ripened grain,**_

* * *

"The Midford girl is getting married today. S'funny," the old man mused, as he steered the reaper-binder through the fields. "Seems not so very long ago that she wasn't even up to my knee." That glancing light that fell upon the grain being cut and bundled in the fields fell also on the churchyard, where the sparkling colors in the windows cut their way through the gloom, into the house of God. She was resplendent in a gown of white that seemed to uplift her almost in a dream; and there it watched her, and fell equally on the lady and her husband-to-be; although all who saw her did admit there was something uncanny about the way the sun's fire lit her face, as though it saw a beauty unique to her alone that surpassed all comprehension. But the world had always seemed to love the Lady Elizabeth.

"She's so tall," someone murmured, lost within the crowds of children eager to peer in on the spectacle, as the newly-wed couple got into their carriage and rode off, leading a train of well-wishers. Among the dirty, laughing, sun-kissed group, this one stood alone, ignored in favor of more interesting affairs; his well-cut clothes of black, his tall, dark, buttoned boots, and his pale, cold face, set with eyes like blue stone, the figure appeared in an instant, to be pulled inexorably along.

How can the time have fallen away so easily, while he had not noticed? Ciel thought. Yes, part of him had taken note of the way the world around him and that lady had grown and changed, but to him she had always been the child of fourteen; older than him by hardly a year, and so young in spirit. But I, Ciel thought, I am still small enough to hide under the coat of an adult; the carriage-wheels still seem impossibly tall. In another moment, a young man followed in the carriage's wake, stepping with impossibly-long strides behind the dust the wheels stirred up. He was tall and dressed all in black still. But no matter how many other carriages he overtook with his speed, that one seemed to always linger on ahead. At last he was standing in London again, still a smartly-dressed gentleman with a pensive face.

"My condolences," someone said as they passed, and he glanced up startled, to meet a woman's gaze.

Did she speak to me? Ciel thought. She must have. She thought I was in mourning, by my clothes. He fiddled with his cuffs, the color changing from black to royal blue to rich burgundy and back again to dull and shadowed black. Every other color seemed too bright, too encompassing and lively, they seemed to swallow him whole.

He felt more strange like this, seeming as though he belonged, fitting into the carefully-fitted world of those civilized peers; as he walked his hesitations fell behind him like crushed glass.

There was the house again, its still and sallow face staring at him. He crossed to the door, faltering at the unaccustomed number of steps it took and the way the handle fit under the swing of his arm instead of above it.

He could feel Sebastian's presence, there in the house, its shadow-thoughts in the walls. The butler-shape himself was standing by the sideboard, carefully polishing each piece of silverware until it shined. Once, that had been a very important job, Ciel mused with irony, as the very same silverware was used to eat and to imaple skulls, a humor Sebastian seemed to appreciate.

He did not seem to find any humor there anymore.

Ciel watched until the last piece of silver was finished and put away, aware that Sebastian slowed his movements until each scrape of fabric across smooth metal took an hour.

"Hello, Sebastian," Ciel said, when his butler had run out of the menial task and stood staring blankly at the sparkling, finished set.

"Is there something you wanted, my lord?" Sebastian asked, wearily.

"What is your opinion on this form?" Ciel asked. He wondered what Sebastian would say. Would it hurt more, to see the shape of the boy he had served so loyally changed and vanished, or less?

"It looks fine, my lord."

But what do you _think_ of it? Ciel thought, annoyed at the careful sidestepping of his question, the noncommittal, toneless reply. He scowled. "The polishing on those spoons are terrible," he said harshly. "Do it again."

Sebastian picked up a spoon and stared into it, as pristine as if it were new-sold.

"Of course, my lord," he answered.

Ciel stalked away into the other rooms, only noticing after he had left that the form he had picked was exactly Sebastian's height, and his ruined reflection looked too much like a memory.

.

.

.


	6. I am the gentle autumn rain

_**6\. I am the gentle autumn rain.**_

* * *

He didn't know when it started, the hollow throb that travelled from his black, corrupted center to the outsides of his fingers and toes, and on those nights when he lay in bed and thought, it seemed to oversweep the room, until nothing was left but this almost-pain. It made him restless; it made him leap from the bed and stand pacing the floor, wearing his endless footsteps deep. Outside, he joined the winding shadows and the wails of hungry children rocked within the arms of mothers with shaking arms and skeletal hands. He came back one afternoon upon the doorstep, like a strange driftwood locked against the buried edge of a river, and Sebastian was standing with the door open looking down at him.

"Do you ever wonder why the world's suffering never touches you as your own does?" Ciel asked, leaning back to rest his head against the frame. "It seems a strange thing, for everyone to live so pettily, wrapped up in their own identical misery. And yet no one seems to notice."

"You've been among the destitute, my lord," Sebastian answered. "Very few care about those, and very few of those understand care without bread."

"I know," Ciel snapped. He brought his hands together, clasping the fingers so they would not shake. He still felt worn out, aching in every empty spot. "I know," he repeated. He wanted to say, why do I feel so strange, not like myself at all, and where have I gone? But it wouldn't do. Sebastian's mockery of care had long worn out, it seemed a shabby pretense to order him to wear it.

/

The boy walked barefoot and bare-headed into the rain, stepping through the swirling filth and water that bubbled across the roads, casting disdainful glances at the well-dressed skirts and trousers that he passed, the shoes stepping carefully to avoid the stinking muck, the umbrellas held up against the sky. That lady with the decorated fan—he saw the veins in her fingers rushing with blood. That man with the sea-green eyes—he seemed to exude an aroma that made the boy's mouth water, a scent that made him follow, enthralled, for blocks, until his prey stepped from a carriage into a gentleman's club. The door swung back behind him, banging closed, leaving a sudden blade of mirror shining suddenly from its polished glass, reflecting the dismal sky, the cold, uncomfortable breeze, cast about with needle-points of rain.

In the dripping glass, the boy and his fine clothes were an image with double exposure, on another glance nothing but a barefoot urchin with untrimmed hair; a two-eyed reflection that stared back in shock at the stranger before him.

Ciel raised his hand, letting it hover before the slick surface, his black-tipped fingers skating over the form, that other hand following his own movements with its uncanny features, the wrist-bones under its tight-stretched skin, the hollow fire in its blue-red eyes.

"Get on then," a man said, roughly, at the enthralled child. "No loitering."

"I…" Ciel stammered, half-afraid that when he spoke, his own voice would be unrecognizable. "I, I only meant…" he stepped back, almost tripping, and then turned and walked away into the rainy street once again. That ache that never seemed to really leave had returned with even stronger force, a hideous thing, and it made him gasp, wrapping his arms around himself, pressing his claws into his own flesh. He stumbled and fell at the edge of a curving street, and pressed his fingers, slick with filth and blood, into his own mouth, sucking and biting until all that was left were mangled red-white sticks of meat that patched themselves back together, slowly remembering the shape of fingers and perfect black nails.

He licked the remnants of blood from the edges of his mouth and stood up, pulling himself together with careful concentration, fashioning a tall and stately guise, an old man with a silver-tipped cane that the rain slid off without a mark. He walked with slow and careful steps.

But the people around him drew up fantasies of faces dripping with blood, their stomachs open, the insides steaming warm, where he could crawl inside and rake talons down the naked flesh.

Behind a glinting pair of spectacles, his eyes flashed red, and he had to stop at every yard to hold himself from running wildly after the girl in blue with the innocent eyes, to not force tendrils around the man with the spotted, black-cancerous soul.

This horrible pain inside him that made him want to scream and weep at the same time, but all he did was breathe, unable to do either. And the rain that fell almost warm onto the streets and his skin fell softly at last, and as he breathed he felt that he had left that place and that form and fell again, equally uncaring, onto all the streets and the people and the edges of the roofs.

And it fell, also, outside the city, on the trees that shook the droplets from their leaves, and the thick-paned windows of the Midford house, where a golden-haired girl stood singing a lullabye to her firstborn son.

Listen to the music of the water against the glass, it said. Listen to the wildness outside, that protection, that curtain that blurs the cares of the world.

And she looked up, staring out into the grey and soothing storm, and she smiled.

.

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	7. When you awaken in the morning's hush,

_**7\. When you awaken in the morning's hush,**_

* * *

Lizzie always woke with the dawn, earlier than her husband on the days they shared a bed, and on those days she lived in the present, and that was easy to do. But sometimes, in her own rooms, when the shade of light was just so, when the sounds of the birds were impossibly right, she thought of Ciel. Not remembering anything they had done, not even seeing the blueness of his eyes and the beautiful curl of his rare and guarded smile, but just feeling, somehow, the soft warmth of his heart like a well-wishing above her. On those days she felt as light and young as a girl, and she could dance her way down any path, and all who saw her would remark on her gaiety, the innocent joy she had never really lost.

Sometimes the air would sweep itself beneath her feet, speaking her name in soft whispers, and the grass and the flowers would tremble as she passed, and then she would feel him, bringing every gift of goodness he could find and laying it at her feet. It was a silly thought, but she believed it, though she did not know if it was or could be true.

Thank you, she spoke back, in every smile and touch. Thank you for your care. Only, please, take a moment to spend some for yourself as well?

But the presence never seemed to hear.

/

It got to be unbearable, and when Sebastian entered the room one morning Ciel found that he was still sitting by the wall, curled up with healing scratches on his arms and legs and deep bloody flakes under his nails.

Sebastian put the tea tray aside and stood, for a moment, regarding him.

"Young master," he said, "it seems that empty tea cups and plates are beginning to wear thin. Do you feel hungry, perhaps?"

"Yes," Ciel ground out. He was shaking.

"As you know," Sebastian said, "there are two ways you can proceed. One is to step outside and snare an unwitting soul; not great fare, perhaps, but it will take the edge off for a while, although it may gather the attention of reapers. Or, of course, there is always a contract."

Ciel stared blankly at the ground. I don't want to, he thought. He couldn't even think of why, after all, the world was predator and prey, no more now than it had been while he was human. And it seemed very hard to care about such things when he was being gnawed through from the inside. He had never been one to scorn food or sweets, and perhaps it wouldn't have bothered him so, if only… if only it wasn't for what it meant. What was the difference between them now, Sebastian and he? If one was a beast, what did that make the other? The blackness in his nails was black all the way through, he had discovered, and his body, with its unmarked back, was a lie.

"Show me how to feed, Sebastian," Ciel said, looking away from the other darkness. He swallowed spit down his dry throat, and clenched his trembling fists. "That's an order," he said, harshly.

"Yes, my lord," Sebastian said, as he always did, and always would.

.

.

.


	8. I am the swift uplifting rush

8\. I am the swift uplifting rush

* * *

"You knew this would happen eventually," Ciel said, flatly, unimpressed by the man's pleading.

"Yes, but… it's hardly been a year," Edwin said, still in a state of shock and disbelief that had not yet progressed to fear.

"You have envy, power, money, and a otherworldly, beautiful wife," Ciel said, "everything you asked for. Now the payment is due… and," he felt his teeth sharpen and his eyes flash, and caught at last the sour scent of fear from his prey, "I am exceedingly hungry."

"But… Margaret, please, just give me more time, I can do whatever you want,"

"More time?" Ciel asked, striding forward to run a black-nailed finger down Edwin's face; he could feel arousal battling against the self-preservation instinct as he leaned down to straddle the man's legs, giving him a sweet smile.

"Is this your wife you're asking for more time?" Ciel said, softly, almost fond.

Edwin grabbed onto that change of tone. "Yes, yes it is," he breathed. "Maggie, dearest…" he pressed his face forward, tangling his fingers in long red hair, leaning into rounded breasts, and Ciel pressed long, slim-fingered arms, milky-pale and bruisingly strong, into his shoulders, making him gasp in half-pain.

"Well…" Ciel said, teasingly, "perhaps Margaret could be persuaded…" then his face dropped into a blank, the care turned off like a light. "But that's no longer my name," he said, his eyes, once more glowing, now lifted up to meet Edwin's above, his face upturned and tilted mockingly, with a flat, dark smile at Edwin's gasp.

"What's wrong?" he asked, coal black hair framing a round boy's face, a black suit with its skull-pinned collar glancing dimly as he leaned across the man's lap, his stockinged feet not even reaching the floor. "I thought you might appreciate a little honesty at the moment of your death. I certainly would."

"What—but you—who are you?"

"I'm exactly who I always was, who you contracted with," Ciel said. "Don't you recognize me?"

At last, a dim memory seemed to float across Edwin's face—the very first human form the demon had showed him had been of an arrogant, aristocratic boy-child, this very same figure.

"You're sick," he snarled, in sudden anger, trying to push Ciel away; but his weak human strength was no match for the power Ciel applied in keeping him pinned and helpless. "Do you think this illusion will ruin me?" he laughed, almost hysterically. "You're wrong," he spat.

"Illusion?" Ciel asked, and his blue-dark eyes were far away. "Perhaps." He reached up to still Edwin's shaking head and leaned his own face close, breathing in the tantalizing scent of his soul through his sour breath. "You're lucky, don't you understand," he said, softly kissing that struggling mouth. "You get to die. You don't know how much I'd pay to be in your place—how much I have paid." Edwin was gasping now, frightened tears slipping from his wild, rolling eyes; he reached out, clutching for purchase at Ciel's dark sleeve. The soul slid out easily, belying his outward struggle; it knew where it belonged, the weight of the promise it had made, the unbreakable chain that bound it. Like a glowing candy, it fizzed gently on Ciel's tongue, and he sighed in sudden pleasure at the sweetness. He leaned back, licking his tongue at the edges of his own lips as he swallowed, feeling a slow tingling warmth that strung itself down every limb, filling his belly and casting firework-sparks across every nerve.

"Ahhh…" he breathed.

"Enjoying yourself?" Sebastian asked, standing close in the shadows.

"Yes," Ciel said. He looked over, too content to feel his usual uncomfortable anger at the sight of his butler's blank face and empty eyes. "I'm sorry you didn't get this from me," he said, impulsively.

"Too much food has loosened your tongue," Sebastian answered. "You would not say such a thing at another time."

Wouldn't I? Ciel thought. He slipped, slowly, from the body, there with its head hanging limp, its awful limbs extended, and his feet reached down to catch the floor. He swayed for a moment, almost unable to hold himself. But the power in his veins urged him to fly, to run streaming into the air. He looked away from Sebastian and the body, climbed carefully down the stairs and pushed open the door into an endless summer morning.

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* * *

After this story is done, I will post a short (2 chapter) companion story: "The Contract", either separately or at the end of this story. It will take place between chapters 7 and 8 and focus more on Ciel's first contract.


	9. Of quiet birds in circled flight

_**9\. Of quiet birds in circled flight.**_

* * *

Another war, when they thought such could never come again, that had started and then grown past all imagining, got closer. Air raids shook the sky, buildings crumbled, ordinary people who had nothing to do with soldiers and ideals died.

It was the luck (and protection) of the infernal that their own apartment was spared, amid all the rubble; time after time. At night, the houses that stood like teeth next to gaping holes blackened their windows and shut up all the light within, and Ciel stood and looked out.

"What is it like in hell?" he asked.

"It is nothing like this, my lord," Sebastian said, standing behind him with a polished, empty teapot, meticulously pouring the steam of dreams into a fragile cup.

"Then what?" Ciel asked, turning around to face him; at height to stand level with his butler, looking at the averted maroon eyes.

Sebastian hesitated. "It is not possible," he said at last, "to explain. It defies the invention of language and any words."

"Then do the best you can," Ciel said, with patient annoyance.

Sebastian looked over, for an instant. "Of course, young master," he said, with a slight mocking hint in his voice.

Ciel said nothing in answer; he did not even dare to move, for fear that if he did, Sebastian would retreat again into the walls, would notice his misstep, his emotion, and smother it.

"A story might best capture it," Sebastian continued, at last, speaking almost to himself. "You see, there was once a boy who had everything he wished for. He had loving parents and was spoiled quite rotten, and he knew nothing at all of the cruelty of the world. But one day, his house was overtaken, burnt down, and his parents killed. You recognize this story?"

"...Yes," Ciel said. Of course I do, he thought, but stopped himself from speaking before he knew what was to come.

"This boy was kidnapped, taken to be the plaything of the idle rich, the perverted fantasies of the untouchable, and he could do nothing at all about it, and at last, he realized that no one cared, that the world was indifferent and cruel, that the merciful God was only a lie."

"Is that the end of the story?" Ciel asked, at last, with a voice that to his relief, was as cold as stone. "Is that hell?"

"Yes," Sebastian said. "And no. There is another story. Another one was there as well, and in the moment of utter despair, noticed this connection of isolation. And this other reached out, out of curiosity, amusement, and hunger. These two came to an agreement, mutually beneficial for both parties, and found that they worked well together, until, one day, that agreement was wrenched asunder. And the other was to continue, still, at the mercy of every whim of the little master. Ah! So you see, there is no fairness in the world at all, and every deal made by humans are only a lie. They may live within it so long, if it pleases them, but it all tumbles down in the end."

"Interesting," Ciel said. "It seems that one party clearly got the worst of it. The other ended up with the power he'd always wanted, wouldn't you say?"

"But was it power that he wanted, after all?" Sebastian asked, and looked at him.

The words that Ciel started to form died upon his lips. For Sebastian looked at him, not with his eyes but with his essence, with that spark of recognition that told him there was someone there, someone on the other side of that long and dark abyss.

And then it shuttered, and flickered off.

"No—" Ciel said, before he could stop himself. He stepped forward, eyes red and glowing, toward the empty shape. "You don't get to do that," he hissed. "You can't just come back and then leave me, Sebastian, I order you… I…" he stumbled, falling to his knees at the trembling suddenness of darkness hovering around him, the baleful gaze of it.

"Stay with me," Ciel said. "Sebastian, that's an order!"

And Sebastian was kneeling down as well, and a hesitating, trembling hand was in his hair. It lingered, for a moment, with hardly any force at all, as though he was caught in a fight between reaching out and pulling back.

"There are some things, young master," Sebastian said, "that cannot be ordered, without erasing their existence altogether."

Ciel breathed in, harshly, the fire in his eyes sending a sparking pain all the way down into his center; as though he was trying to cry. But that act was now impossible, and so all his did was gasp, and screw his eyes shut.

"I know," he said, at last. "I'm sorry," he said. "I'm sorry, and I can't change it. I won't. It isn't in me to do so."

"I know," Sebastian said, slowly. "I have been thinking very much, these past years. I have been coming to many realizations. One of them... is that in a battle between two equally stubborn, prideful creatures, neither of which is willing to back down, both will suffer, and neither will win. The other…" he sighed. "The other is that, if one is to be a slave to eternity, it seems an awful thing to spend it in making yourself miserable."

Ciel looked up. "What?" he asked, blankly.

Sebastian smiled at him, careful and almost fond, and stood. "You asked me about hell," he said at last, and reached out a hand. "Shall we go?"

/

In the darkness of London's blackened sky, a city half-ruined and yet still fighting, two birds, equally dark, flew on soft and silent wings, soaring in careless spirals round, and round, and down.

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	10. I am the soft stars that shine at night

_**10\. I am the soft stars that shine at night.**_

* * *

The starlight shone equally on the house where Lizzie slept, and, far across the lands of ruined mud and trenches, the fitful sleep of a grandson with the same bright green eyes. He had that kind of luck, they said. The kind that is hard to believe in theory but easy enough, when it's the enemy's fire; the kind of luck his grandmother had as well, although she had not been in the war. When the starlight shone down cold and soft, it caught the planes of exhausted faces, it drew itself, a blanket, over uncovered shoulders. And perhaps, for a few short hours, it could give them rest.

And the violence would go on; the atrocities and the horrors and the desperate measures, the heroics and the senseless deaths, while the sun began to set over the Empire that had dared the dark to come.

/

I recognize this, Ciel thought, when they descended into hell. It was rawness and screaming, despair and ever-reaching. It was the worst that could never be imagined, and it was the ubiquitous mundanity of life. It was not, to his surprise, so very different from the Earth at all.

It was only after some time, when a weary tired feeling had begun to fall, that he realized that it lacked the breath of the wind, the glinting of the sun over shallow waters, the small imperceptible kindnesses that were so easy to overlook up there.

But all in all, it was as surviveable as any kind of life.

"Sebastian," Ciel asked, once, there. "What is it that you find so interesting about humanity?"

"I think I have listed the many ways," Sebastian said.

"...That it is similar to hell, or different?" Ciel continued. "Which one constitutes the focus for any kind of curiosity? The commonsense idea would be to assume the differences, and yet I doubt that _purity_ is what draws you toward them."

"I would think," Sebastian said, "that it is in the intersection between the two. The large similarities that are hardly acknowledged, and the minute differences that are beyond understanding, that beg for consideration. There is nothing to consider in a vacuum."

"Is that all it is, then?" Ciel continued. "Scientific curiosity? Doesn't that preclude animalism and hunger?"

"I don't find that it does," Sebastian replied, after thought. "Although I resent the connection of those two terms."

"Don't tell me," said Ciel with a mocking smile, "that you are about to argue you are not a beast."

"I may be," Sebastian admitted. "But I have never yet seen anything that wasn't—including humans, though you wish to deny it. It is merely that some beasts are able to comprehend the possibility of something beyond a menial existence."

"And that includes you?" Ciel asked.

"As you said…" Sebastian added. "Why else would one be curious, at all?"

(At some point; in the darkness  
In the fear of memories and the future  
And: Tantalus reached for food, but it slipped away.)

"I thought I wished to be rid of the world," Ciel continued, once, there. "But there is something about it, still, that nags at me, that I can't yet let go of." He did not say this, and Sebastian did not answer. He did not say this, but it fell down a thousand oubliettes and seeped out through the walls, like water.

And Ciel asked, "what is death?"

How strange, to have been fearing and longing for something he couldn't even articulate, something he couldn't even comprehend.

"That is, perhaps, a question more suited to a death-god than I."

"And eternity?"

"Life, I suppose."

That leaves, of course, the question, what is life? Ciel thought. Greater minds than his own (he was loath to admit those did exist, but hell had many geniuses after all) had stumbled on that question, reduced to listing its attributes as though somehow it would cohere—in defiance of the fact that what they were trying to define was, in the end, that ineffable quality that made it cohere at all.

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	11. DO not Stand At my grave and cry

The blue-violets were blooming, dashed with the mad brush of early summer across the grass, crowding their way around the polished white of Ciel's gravestone.

He would be younger now than her own children, Lizzie thought, with the soft edge of a smile at the strangeness. Sometimes, caught up in a memory of him that floated in on the scent of summer air, the reporting of a gruesome crime in the papers, it would amaze her, suddenly, how young he had been, and how accomplished, for all that—the kind of genius that would surely have blossomed as he grew, if only given the chance. And how, for all his driving ambition, he had never seemed to see that future for himself, the future she had always tried to show him, unfolding like a ribbon over the hills. With such a tragedy as he had experienced, it was no wonder he found it hard to conceive of.

She had never told anyone this, but his servants knew: he had left that day dressed all in black, as though he knew of his own death. And he had acted so strange before he went. Whatever fancies her childish mind had conceived of with the glint of reddish eyes, it was true that there had been some unease in the air around him, some kind of palpable end. It made Lizzie wonder, then, if the killer had ever really been unknown, if Ciel, who scoffed at fate and disbelieved in heaven, had taken his own life, helped by the hand of his ever-faithful butler. Her heart yearned to deny it, and yet she could never banish the thought.

And so he had gone, and she no longer faulted him for the parting, although she ached still to tell him there had been no reason for it, to try to make him believe (and this time he would!) tell him almost as if he were her own child that no matter what tragedy may have befallen him, hope still remained in himself and the strength of his own soul.

And yet he had stayed, and the world had gone on without him, the wildflowers still grew. Even the most faithful must move on, though they would always think of him; and through the veil of ever-spanning years, growing ever wider between them, Lizzie thought she could even now catch a glimpse of a boy and a girl, playing in a garden, on a summer's day in paradise.

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	12. I am not there, I did not die

And the war had ended, the rebuilding had begun, the unfathomable numbers had stumbled from behind fences, unfathomable more still lay below the ground, an imprint of carelessness, inhumanity, agony.

And already, the grass had started to grow, the churned mud had settled, the new couples chose the paint for children's walls.

"Elizabeth died today." The boy blew onto the windowsill, coalescing out of flurries of snow that drove themselves heedless through the air, turning at last to a black-clad figure with pale, unmarred skin, blue-veined, like ice.

"Did she now," Sebastian said, with equanimity. Had he known already? He would not have been surprised. She had lived a long life. "My condolences."

"I am going to the funeral," Ciel said shortly. "You are not required."

"If you wish, I will of course, go," Sebastian offered.

"That will not be necessary," Ciel said.

Perhaps Lizzie would have appreciated Sebastian coming to her funeral, but Ciel didn't like to think of it; perhaps, that way, something of a memory would still remain, of the girl never daunted by anything, even a demon-butler, that unstoppable force dressed in orange; he would not have to look at her lined and peaceful face again, empty without a soul to carry it, and see beside him another one who had not changed at all.

"In fact, I order you not to."

"Very well," Sebastian said, and reached forward to take Ciel's hand, to help him from the sill and pull it shut against the cold.

Did it rankle him? Ciel wondered, abstractly, searching that impassible face. Would he have wished to go? He did offer. Out of, what? Affection for Lizzie? He had never had any, although he had seemed to respect her. And perhaps, for Sebastian, that meant very much indeed.

"I shall procure the necessary clothes, and fetch the automobile," Sebastian said, "if you would like me to drive you there."

"Yes, perhaps I will," Ciel said. He had not thought to travel that human way, but it seemed fitting; and so, when the time arrived, a young man dressed in black stepped in among the mourners and the churchgoers; people he had seen and recognized as friends, acquaintances, family of Elizabeth's. Familiar people, although they did not know him.

And Sebastian, as uncomfortable as he always was with churches, did not leave, but let the automobile idle at the steps, and watched, through the doors, until they were shut.

/

* * *

 _epilogue_

* * *

Mary's mother was always sad after they visited her father's grave, and she liked to hurry out of the graveyard as fast as she could, somehow they always had pressing errands to do. But Mary, holding fast to her mother's hand, wanted to look around; sometimes she would see the funny old undertaker wandering too and fro, other times she would see groups like her own, children with their mothers and siblings who met her eyes, and that made her feel less alone.

So she noticed at once the child kneeling at a freshly dug grave.

"Mama! Is that boy okay?"

Her mother sighed. "What boy, Mary?"

"That boy, over there!" she pointed. "He must be cold." There he was, and the stone stood sharp-cut and shining. He was coatless, clad all in black in the kind of clothes Mary knew from old pictures of her grandparents and parents as children. His skin was pale, his bare hands and feet pressed against the frozen dirt, his face hidden from view by the edges of his dark hair.

Her mother squinted. "Where?"

"At that grave! He looks so sad," Mary whispered to herself.

"Oh!," her mother gasped, quietly—the image seemed to exist for an instant as she looked up, a clear and strange picture of loss that made her shiver in unconscious sympathy, before her eyes adjusted, and the view resolved itself into the greys and whites of the winter graves, empty and abandoned.

She quickening her pace, even as Mary turned back to look, trying to catch the child's eye as her mother tugged her along. She was worried—did he have any parents left? Did he have anywhere to go? She wanted to stop, for a moment, and speak to him.

"Yes, I thought the same, at first," her mother continued, and she pulled her coat tighter around her. "—But it's just a trick of the light."

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 _The End_

 _._

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* * *

note: I will post the connected twoshot "The Contract" as an extra two chapters at the end of this story.


	13. THE CONTRACT: His Wife, Doing Her Duty

**The Contract**

* * *

 **story warnings:** consent issues, implied traumatic memories (no details)

* * *

 **1\. His Wife, Doing Her Duty**

 _The man screamed, one arm reaching to scrabble at the edge of his shoulder, which burned under his clothes as the contract mark was formed. And even Ciel stumbled, caught off-guard by the magic that flowed between them, the almost palpable chain that seemed to tug them together. He blinked, and shuddered, looking down at the back of his own uncovered hand, where a sharply pointed star was glowing a blinding purple. It's done, he thought, almost in shock. I made a contract… he is mine now…_

The pentagram was still there, though dormant and ink-black, as Sebastian's was, from Ciel's few memories of the butler's hand uncovered. It seemed to have _weight_ to it, some unerring force that told Ciel where Edwin was, what he was desiring. Nothing, at the moment—the man was asleep, the flickers of half-formed wishes sparking at the edge of Ciel's mind as he dreamed.

It was a simple enough contract. This man had no desire for revenge, no hidden, darkened past. Only a father who had gambled away the family's money and an ambition to match his name, if not his means, by any price. What a fleeting thing to give up an immortal soul for—just a small, short time on this earth being envied, rich, successful. When he was gone, what would be left of this deal? What memories, what influence would he leave behind?

His skin itched, pulling down upon its new-formed bones; Ciel kept trying to shift his form to something more amenable without realizing it, and it irritated him both that he kept forgetting that was no longer possible and that it _was_ no longer possible, his form constricted by Edwin's expectations. The late-summer air was heavy and thick, it whispered through the open windows of Ciel's small chamber, inviting him to join it, bringing in the heady scent of flowers, touched with sun-dry ground.

A bigger house would be the first thing Ciel would arrange for, as soon as the pieces he'd set in motion began to move. By the end of the month, Edwin Brown would have enough money to set up in a better part of the city, by the next month he would be able to gather attention, if he played his cards right, and Ciel would play them.

You see? Ciel thought, defiantly. I am perfectly able to take care of this contract, whatever you may think, Sebastian.

Of course, the room remained empty, and no answer came.

" _Is that all?" Ciel said, with a sigh. "Greed. How petty."_

" _Do we have a deal, demon?" the man persisted._

" _Young master," Sebastian's voice came whispering out of the dark, twining around them so that the man jumped and stared around wildly. "I can't help but think you do not know what you are doing."_

" _Did I give you leave to speak, Sebastian?" Ciel said._

 _Sebastian did not reply._

" _There are two of you?" the man asked, struggling in vain to peer through the encompassing darkness._

" _That one belongs to me," Ciel said. "Take no notice of him. —And," he grinned, shaking the man's hand, "I accept your offer."_

"Margaret, dearest," Edwin said with that uneasy mix of superiority and wariness, "when I said that you should be my wife I didn't mean it to be only a business arrangement."

"I think I've taken care of more than business," Ciel said, trying to keep the snappish tone out of his voice. It amazed him how much Edwin always _wanted_. "I've accompanied you to every social event on your calendar," he said, meekly, and laced his fingers together, looking down at them so that if he forgot himself and let his eyes flash, Edwin might not notice.

Ciel hated social events. They were not any more tolerable as the wife of new money than as a child earl. They were, perhaps, even more dull and insipid than he recalled, full of gossip and fashion and women he despised.

"That's business, Maggie," Edwin said, with the slightest bit of amusement in his voice. He walked over, putting an arm around Ciel's shoulders until Ciel finally huffed and allowed it.

Well, perhaps technically.

"I don't see what you have a problem with," Ciel said, almost petulantly. He'd thought he'd done a very good job. It wasn't easy, granting wishes.

"The problem…" Edwin sighed. "It's really just…" he hesitated. "You haven't been to my bed once, and—well, that is an expected duty, you realize…"

"What?" Ciel said, flatly. He twisted around to look Edwin in the eye, who after all must be joking. There was absolutely no way this was any sort of expected duty, nor was Ciel going to go along with any such thing.

Edwin's confidence wavered a bit in the face of Ciel's steely glare, and he swallowed. But then he straightened up, obviously reminding himself who was in charge here.

"I understand you have your quirks," he said, "but this is non-negotiable."

"Brown—" Ciel started, darkly.

"It's an order."

Ciel went quiet, his fists clenched in the fabric of his dress. He took a deep breath, and let coldness fall over his face until nothing at all could leak through, except the fury in his eyes.

"Oh, is it?" he said.

"Margaret," Edwin said, "please don't make this awkward."

Ciel smiled thinly. "Of course, husband," he said. He stood up. "Well, I have a busy schedule today, so I'll be going then."

"Maggie—"

"I'm sure I'll see you tonight," Ciel said, with exaggerated care, turning before Edwin could answer and walking as fast as could reasonably be considered proper for a lady until he had made it out of the room.

Not that it could be considered proper at all for a lady to blow up at her husband like that. For something that was, after all, expected of the arrangement.

Somehow, Ciel had never thought that their particular one, with its ulterior motives, would be held to the same standard. He hadn't prepared himself at all, and now he made it all the way out of the breakfast room and down the hall until into his own rooms, the only place he could be reasonably sure Edwin wouldn't enter.

He considered breaking the deal. This was not a new thought, for Ciel was impatient, easily angered, and didn't take well to orders; but this was the first time the thought was more than an idle consideration, a momentary rage.

He wasn't sure he could do this.

But—if he didn't—he forfeited Edwin's soul, that sweet concoction that seemed more tempting each day; and he would be stuck with the same gnawing hunger, that impossibly empty void that had already grown so much he felt light-headed (and not just because of the torturous contraption of corsets).

After all of this hard work!

Ciel paced around his room, grabbing things at random—books, hairbrushes, perfumes—and throwing them wildly at the walls until they broke. At last, with nowhere else to go, he sank down against the wall, pulling his hands up through his hair and leaning his head back. It was so hard to think, with every gasp for breath, with every day that passed hungry, with every wish of Edwin's, with this order heavy in his mind like a stone, telling him what he would most certainly do. Preparations must be made. Forms must be kept to. There was no doing otherwise.

Unless he broke the contract.

And then?

Finding Sebastian again? Stealing some soul, like he was no better than a thief? Reduced to such a menial scavenging out of nothing but pride…

But… could he bear…

"Surely I must," Ciel said, to the empty room, in the voice that no longer sounded like his own. "I survived it before…" the voice wavered, and Ciel hated it. "This is nothing like that time… And Edwin wouldn't hurt his 'wife', he is much too fond of her. He doesn't have a sadistic nature, he is just a selfish, greedy fool, in over his head in something he doesn't understand."

This was all true; Ciel knew it. But it did not stop the racing panic in his chest. It did not stop the words that rose unbidden to his mind, to call for Sebastian, to order him to get rid of everything in Ciel's way.

Well.

His schedule was not very crowded after all; he'd had nothing so pressing that it couldn't be thrown aside in favor of sitting hunched up in his room, digging teeth into his skin and trying to remember how to breathe, until the sun had gone down. And he still had not broken the contract.

So Ciel got up, putting everything in order, changing out of his dress and corset alone, too fast, with the application of a bit of hasty magic to help with stays and buttons, taking a moment to stand and trying not to black out, putting on a nightgown, walking into Edwin's rooms.

 _The two waiting voids stared in through the dirt-streaked window, a tall man in a pristine butler's uniform, and a boy, perching haughtily on the thin strip of brick._

" _Am I to take it, then, that you are not going to answer?" Sebastian asked. He paused, and then, carefully, continued. "Perhaps that is for the best. After all, contracts are challenging things; it might be wiser to scavenge for your first meal."_

" _Are you implying that I am a coward?" Ciel asked, turning back to face his butler with burning eyes. Sebastian might have agreed, and while that would have fuelled Ciel's rage, he knew to be on his guard for Sebastian's tricks and taunts._

 _What he still hadn't gotten used to was the lack of them._

" _No, my lord," Sebastian said flatly. "Forgive me if my words have construed any kind of offense."_

 _It was like his balance was off, as though gravity had moved slightly akilter. I know what you were going to say, Ciel thought. I know what you wanted to say._

 _But did I?_

 _The eerie dark eyes over that mask-face did not seem to want anything, anymore._

" _Even if I don't make an agreement, it might be amusing to play with him a bit before we go," Ciel said, pointedly casual, slipping insubstantial through the glass to hover as a sudden darkness in the room. In the momentary silence, beyond the shocked gasp of the summoner, Ciel could hear the almost imperceptible creak of the window being pushed up and soft footsteps walking surely through the cluttered room to stand behind him._

Ciel had picked out his maidservant, carefully, as someone who did not tire him so much as some girls might. Of course, the outcome of this was that Cora tended to be quite sharp-eyed, with a quick wit, and she did not miss much. It made sense, now, how much Sebastian had enjoyed being the anomaly disguised in plain sight, brazening past impossibilities with the sheer force of his personality. Ciel never did have that kind of power, but his ingénue eyes were just as convincing green as blue. And he was not having to hide bodies around every corner (as amusing as that might have been).

Ciel must have been complaining about Edwin again. Cora, who was very patient with a hairbrush through long red tresses, nodded and let him continue until he had progressed to a sullen silence.

"Mistress," she said at last. "May I speak plainly?"

Ciel met her dark, watchful eyes in the mirror and motioned peremptorily. "Of course, Cora."

"Why did you marry Mr. Brown? It wasn't a child, you know, that's what I thought at first,"

Ciel almost choked—how awful! He couldn't even imagine _that_ , he thought, shuddering.

"Are you all right?"

He waved her away. "I'm fine."

"I mean… it wasn't for love; and, to be frank, he never had any money before he married you. It's just, a girl like you," she said, admiringly, "you had to have had options. Why did you choose him?"

It was a question that left Ciel tongue-tied, for a moment. Why had he decided on this, of all possible contracts, all possible people? Edwin Brown wasn't the worst man to ever summon a demon; but the availability of worse options didn't explain it. Ciel had been hungry, and Edwin had been available, and that made Ciel sound like a whore.

"I made a hasty decision," Ciel said, at last. "I'm not sure I really thought it through."

"Well," Cora said, when the silence had become too long, too loud. "It happens."

 _The man, at last, began to fidget and he looked around the room. His eyes strayed to Sebastian and he cleared his throat._

" _Uh… Margaret," he said awkwardly, "is there a reason there's a butler standing in the room?"_

" _He's my butler," Ciel said, his other hand clenched tightly over the one with the contract seal._

" _I don't need a butler," Edwin explained patiently. "I just need money and a wife."_

" _Edwin," Ciel snapped. "Perhaps you don't understand. Sebastian comes with me."_

" _What would that look like to everyone?" Edwin said. "You being followed around by such a well-dressed…" he glanced toward Sebastian again, and away. "Well, it just wouldn't do! Get rid of him!"_

 _Ciel's eyes widened, and then he narrowed them, sneering. "Listen," he said cuttingly. "Sebastian is the best butler you'll ever meet, and he's very good at his job—much better than whatever mediocre butler you're keeping around."_

" _I don't need a butler," Edwin said._

" _I trained him myself," Ciel retorted indignantly._

"That's an order _," Edwin said._

 _Ciel fell silent._

 _I won't do it, he thought. There's no way he can make me send away my own servant. I—_

" _Sebastian," he said, with a shaking voice, "Leave us. That's an order."_

 _Sebastian met his eyes, and then, silently, he stepped back, and bowed. "Yes, my lord," he replied at last, almost inaudibly, before turning for the still-open window and jumping out into the night._

 _Ciel watched him go, his mouth half-open. But I never meant to say that, he thought. He wasn't supposed to leave. He felt, with sudden nausea, a memory of the last time Sebastian had left at his order, hitting him with sudden force. Claude, and his meddling, creeping ways… the cold horror of that red ring, the uncertainty in his own mind as to his own past, his own name… he'd thought the terror had faded over time, but it had just been waiting to spring up again._

 _For a long moment, Ciel did nothing. Time suspended immeasurably, the past and the present blurring into one another with a weighted tension. He could not move._

" _Is that ordinary?" Edwin said. "A demon having a contract like this, with another demon? I've never heard of such a thing."_

" _...It's not."_

 _Ciel turned back, slowly, from the empty window, feeling the mark on his eye fading back to red-pupiled slits as he regarded his contractor… his master._

 _I will very much enjoy tearing you to pieces, he thought._

I've never done this before, Ciel thought. And then—of _course_ he had never done anything like this before. This was his first contract, and he was stumbling through it without a guide except his memories of Sebastian.

What was his first contract like? Ciel wondered, at last. I never thought about it. I never wished to ask him, or even to speculate. It was as though he was created just for me, as though nothing at all had existed before we met.

This was exactly how a contractor should feel, Ciel supposed. When one owns a genie, one usually does not think to ask its life story. And perhaps that privacy, existing between the cracks of what could be ordered and what would be ordered, was the bastion of continuity, the only one possible.

But did _he_ care about that? Did time even flow the same way, for him? Or had Sebastian really meant it when he said that he had made himself anew, a life unconnected by any previous experience?

No. It couldn't have been that. Even hunger would not explain his grief now, if that had been the case.

A life without a self couldn't mourn.

Edwin let his hands rest, hesitantly, on Ciel's skin, watching him as though he would bolt. There was a conflictedness in the angles of his face, his palpable unease at the stiff uncertain way Ciel rested beneath him. It was a flicker of darkness, this choice. Oh, some part of him knew that what he was doing went beyond wrong, and this man had never learned to revel in wickedness.

Ciel smiled, relaxing, dancing his fingertips across Edwin's chest.

"What's the matter?" he whispered.

And Edwin allowed himself to believe to lie. He continued.

Another measure of tarnish on his soul, a little deepening of his flavor that Ciel could almost taste. He swallowed, mouth dry, entranced at his palpable influence, the little bit of sin he had painted his meal in. It seemed to exude from the human's pores, it filled his scent, his mouth. Even the mechanics of bodies moving was easy to ignore when this soul was so close—almost close enough to consume.

Easy enough to ignore.

Ciel licked the spent from Edwin's body, finding that it didn't bother him at all; this piece of his master, his doomed inamorato, this fly in his own web; what a wonderful appetiser before the main event.

.

.

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	14. THE CONTRACT: His Master, Considering

**The Contract**

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 **warnings/note:** mention of past Sebastian/Ciel flirtation that never went anywhere

* * *

 **2\. His Master, Considering**

Seduction had been a game that even the child Ciel had been had known how to play. Oh, it could be grating, to talk sweetly to men while fantasizing about tearing them apart, to placate his fiancee while squinting at obnoxious decorations, thinking only that he wished she wouldn't cry. But with Sebastian, it had always been just another way of speaking, looks that promised without promising; perhaps the complicated nature of that relationship between master/meal and servant/beast required it. It had meant so much, without meaning anything at all.

Sebastian might make innuendo, might let his touches linger gently just too long, but he had never made the move from teasing to action, and Ciel wondered why.

If it was such an easy way to gain a taste of what the demon craved, why deny himself? Was it part of his butler aesthetic, this starving of every possible sweet, in order to build up anticipation for the finish?

Perhaps he knew that it would have tilted the already precarious balance Ciel resided under. Perhaps he thought Ciel would have ordered him not to. Would he have, though? Ciel had been so young, so unsure, even in his arrogance.

Had there been something more pleasing in his innocence than in his corruption? What; if it was corruption, in every way, that made the soul so good—that Sebastian never hesitated to cultivate in him in any other way?

Sebastian played the glutton, but he seemed so much more the ascetic, in a certain turn of the light. He reveled in violence, and minimized bloodshed; he was hungry and starved himself, loved pain and was gentle.

Another game Sebastian played with himself?

And how much was his own making, and how much was Ciel's?

 **/**

The contract ended, and all those chains that Ciel had twisted himself in vanished, leaving him light enough to float, insubstantial enough to dissipate into the earth, as though he might never come back. But as always, he returned to that frowning building at last, where the one inhabitant resided, always, in an unrestful haunt, pulled by that last chain, that thread that held him fast from leaping, in pieces, from one glittering sunbeam to another, never to return.

Lizzie was still well, and her children, as well as he could keep them with every protection. Edwin's affairs had been settled, his money dispersed, his wife vanished, her maidservant, along with the other servants, armed with recommendations and a generous gift from Edwin's will.

And Sebastian still remained.

It's not like I need him still, Ciel thought, as he hesitated upon the doorstep. He pushed it open, feeling the old wood protest, the musty smell of an unlived-in place, the pristine, dust-free surfaces, the scoured walls.

What would it be like, to free him? Not for Sebastian's gratitude, for Ciel presumed he would have none. Perhaps he would disappear, never to return—perhaps he would spend his anger in lashing out at Ciel, fighting him, perhaps he would even manage to kill him somehow.

(The contract mark in his own eye was no longer visible unless he wished it, and yet it was always present, a reassuring pain.)

It was what Sebastian wanted, after all. He had so much as asked, manipulating Ciel into making the deal as he did. What other situation could have brought the truth to light? What else could have made Ciel think about the other side of this agreement?

Would it really be so much trouble, to do this one thing for a servant who had been so loyal?

And if he did, what of Ciel would be left?

He had only ever been two things, since his world was shattered: a frightened, powerless boy, and Sebastian's. He had been that for so long he did not know what would be left, if he took that away; what shape the pieces might make. Or if they would make anything at all.

.

.

.

 _ **end**_

* * *

 **note:** There will be further stories in this 'verse! They will be published as separate stories with the note that they belong to the series "How Not to Spend Eternity" of which this will be parts 1 & 2.


End file.
